Follow the author of this article

Follow the topics within this article

Blue Monday – the third Monday in January, so called because it is apparently the most depressing day of the year – was particularly grim for Carillion.

After days of tense talks with the Government and its lenders, the firm announced just before the stock market opened for the week that it had been put into liquidation.

Across the country, thousands of construction workers, hospital cleaners and dinner ladies turned up for work not knowing whether they would be paid or not. Scores of small companies, employed via Carillion as subcontractors on projects, were left with bills unpaid, wondering whether they would ever see the money owed to them. Stories emerged of workers scrambling to retrieve...